Flightless
by NineSoul
Summary: "Of course they care. But I cared the most. Care. Present-tense. I *care* the most and I always will. I just wish he knew." Introspective JohnLock oneshot. That excerpt doesn't begin to cover it.


**Well, hello there. This is my first JohnLock fic. :) Nice to meet you, JohnLock fandom. Would you like some tea? I'll admit it's a bribe. Do you want tea now? No? Oh. Okay. Well. I'm really not sure about this fic, but it seemed like such a nice idea that I had to write it. It's very... feelish. Yes, that is why the tea. I do not want to be killed before you've finished reading, and that extra-large tub of Earl Grey seemed like the perfect diversion.**

**Also! Before you begin the reading portion of this exercise, you should know that I am not British and do not (usually) pretend to be, but I tried to emulate Britishness as best I could for the purposes of this fic. I did not mean to offend anyone if it's terrible. xDDx**

People everywhere, all the time, wish they could fly. It seems the general dream of humanity to be able to spread their arms or extend lovely, strong wings and take off with the wind. Of course, to that I am no exception. I have wanted to fly many times in my life, many. I won't say continuously because there have been times where I wouldn't trade my normal, grounded life for anything, but there have been plenty of occasions when taking off into the clouds seemed the best course of action.

But maybe I've gone off-subject a bit. Never too late to correct, I suppose.

Though we have planes and parachutes and the like, nothing would compare to flying on our own, I'm sure of it. When we finally do evolve beyond our slouchy, mouth-breathing society as it is now, I imagine flying will be the first on a long list of "impossible" things that we will accomplish as singular beings. That's all a bit above my head, so to speak, but it's such a dreamy concept that I can't help myself but to think of it.

It occurs to me, as I sit here writing, that life could either become very much better, or very much worse if just anyone could fly. There would be no same. Maybe that's what the world needs. Regardless, it would be a big change. Personally, I am absolutely certain my life would be so much better if I could fly. If I had been born with a set of feathered wings, or the inexplicable ability to lift off the ground without any apparent effort at all.

I often sigh, thinking about it. Why would I do this to myself? Imagining how much better my life could have been- Who does that help? Not me, I know that much. No matter how many times I think it through, no matter how many different scenarios I picture, not a single detail about my life until now changes. Not my childhood, or my time in the army, or... or _him_.

God, I hate to think about this. Every day, it seems, I run back through all my, I suppose, fantasies. Every damn day. Again and again and again, in a loop. A childish dream, I'd call it, but every time, even in such a dream, I fail. I don't understand why, _why_ my mind has to mess with me, to cause so many sleepless nights and discontented days. It haunts me, even when I'm awake, all the things that I could do, could have done, things that my subconscious relentlessly reminds me of that never do end well.

Deep breaths. Come on, then, calm down. No need to get worked up. It's been years, now. I'm supposed to be talking–no, writing–about something else by now. What was I on about earlier? Hmm... Oh, that's right. Yes, I was writing about flying. I can't say as I remember what my point was going to be, there. It could only have led to one thing and just the one thing, the thing I work so hard to keep my mind off of every day of my miserable life.

To all of you reading this, you should know it isn't easy. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I wholeheartedly believe that nothing will ever again be easy, but everyone says it will get easier. I want to believe them. I really, really do.

People have also been saying recently that I am difficult to understand, that I jump around too much in my thoughts or some similar thing. Do you follow me so far? I don't think I'm incoherent in that way, but... Well, let's just say it wouldn't be the first time I'd been mistaken.

I need to go on holiday. Get away from the endless gray of city life. The surgery's been painfully slow, anyway, I'm sure they wouldn't mind. I've been so bored. Maybe what I ought to do is shoot the wall or keep small appendages in the kettle. It always seemed to work for _him_.

And here I go again, thinking about flying. This time I could try something different, go about it from another angle, but I think that every time and I've not once succeeded. Not once. That is, perhaps, the only thing that keeps me from going completely insane.

I'd have flown on the battlefield. Not _from_ it, God, no. I would have flown to the rescue of my brothers and sisters in uniform. Saved those now crippled or dead. If I could have flown, however, and this is the obstacle I always run into, I may not have gotten out of the army when I did and, by extension, I may never have had the amazing opportunity to meet the brilliant Sherlock Holmes.

There is no way I could manage the ability to fly and not use it to its greatest potential. I couldn't let my army mates get hurt or myself get shot, especially if I didn't know. How could I know? It was all before I met him.

Later, then. If I could have just flown on a few different occasions, a few different cases... Life and death situations, honestly... I'm not being unreasonable, am I? Maybe it's selfish, maybe... maybe I should just accept things the way they are. But, every day... Every damn day, several times a day, when I'm making a cup of tea and only just one, when I'm sat in my quiet living room all alone, at night when I brush my teeth before bed, with every breath I take in every other imaginable minute, I always see it.

It starts when my mobile rings and then I'm there, on the pavement across the street. I can hear the crowd around me, feel the cold breeze, the bustle of the city and I can't tell anymore if I'm imagining it or if it's really happening again. It's so real... Every time...

Have I had my tea, yet? I can't think of all this without tea in my system, it just doesn't work. No, well... It does _work_, it just- it's less pleasant. That's a stupid thing to say, really, it's always less pleasant. There is no good way or state to remember it in. It will always be painful. But, once I have my cuppa, maybe I will be able to hold myself together for the duration of the memory. That's all that I can hope for.

Anyway. One good, cleansing breath. Calm, level. It's not real, just a memory or, no, maybe it never happened. Maybe I'll go home to 221b and that great git will be sprawled on the sofa with half a dozen nicotine patches on his arm, talking to me like I'd been there the whole time... I may be crazy for ever spending time with him in the first place, but I'm sane enough to know that's not true. I saw it. He's not coming back. Not from that.

I blogged about this a while ago, didn't I? I feel like I did. A few times, even. How long has it been, anyway, since that day? I used to know exactly. The count was up to seven-hundred-and-forty-two days, I believe, before I was forced to let it go. It might be three years now. Or it might be thirty. A small part of me wishes it's been thirty. Maybe that's terrible, but I wouldn't have to live with this much longer.

So that you know, faithful readers, I would never... could never take the easy way out. It took me longer than I'd like to say to realize that. A lot longer than it should have taken me, I know. As alone as I had been before I met him and as alone as I feel now... I still have friends. People that would cry at my funeral, no matter how I got there. It doesn't matter how badly I wanted to not deal with it all, how much I still want out, I'm not living for just myself. I am not conceited enough to think that.

I've got an appointment soon. Why didn't I mention it earlier? I have no idea. Someone'll be here to visit me. Someone new, according to the nurses. I'm not so sure about that. Nobody wanted to see me all too often after Sherlock... Ahem. Mrs. Hudson, yes, Harry, of course. Sometimes Greg or Molly, but never anyone new. It's a lonely existence. I wonder if they didn't just put me here because they were tired of pretending to care.

That was rude. Of course they care. But I cared the most. Care. Present-tense. I _care_ the most and I always will. I just wish he knew.

What was the point of all this? I don't even know. The subject, though today it started with flight, usually ends up on grief. I try to avoid it because, apparently, I'm good at doing things futilely, but I always find myself lamenting my great losses. That was wrong. _Loss_. Singular. There have been a number of losses that I have slogged through, but this one... this particularly painful loss... cannot be slogged through. This is _the_ loss. _The _grievance. The _end_.

It should've been. I think it everyday. It was our worst day; our downfall. Our death. We were and can only be just friends now, I know. I shouldn't have taken it so hard, as just a friend. I know that. But I was his friend. One of the very privileged few. And, when you live with the most amazing person you've ever met and will ever meet, things get complicated. And I never told him that. I should have. He deserved to know that his assistant and roommate loved him like no one else.

But, rather than just ending without him, I got to live on alone and to eventually come to this place of minimal freedom so I can write for a blog that no one would read even if they could. Yes, that's right, whoever you are. I know you're screening, and I know you've never once put through any of my entries to the world wide web. Maybe that's the least of my worries. I know it doesn't really matter, anyway. Not compared to the fact that they all still think I need to be here.

I must be a tad incoherent. Did I do something crazy? Do you know? Was I sleep walking one night after I fell asleep in front of the telly? Did I threaten someone? Myself? I cannot, to the best of my knowledge, recall any such behavior from myself. I am depressed and I was a little off my rocker for a minute there, but really? An institution? I think this is overkill.

Well. It isn't horrible here. If it were, I'd be writing about how bad the food is, or how rude the nurses are, or how cold it gets sometimes, or something like that. But there are some nice people here. Peggy the nurse lets me stay up past curfew. Dr. Burroughs doesn't pressure me into spilling my guts. Terry from group, who suffers from PTSD, is good company a lot of the time. And yet I complain. When and how did I get so spoiled?

They say I can leave anytime, you know. Yeah. That's what they say. But, I'm still a suicide risk, apparently, so that means I'd have to live with someone keeping an eye on me. Let the record reflect, reader, that I love Mrs. Hudson dearly and Mrs. Hudson, in return, loves me like a son. She's told me that several times. That said, I could not ever ask her to sign a bunch of paperwork saying she'd make sure I didn't take my own life. I wouldn't do that to her. There's hardly anyone I would trust or like enough to live with, and there are even fewer people whose existence I would even consider hindering like that. I can only think of one, and I don't believe he'd think of it as a burden. But, he wouldn't be able to sign any of the paperwork. He's dead.

I wouldn't want that kind of life, anyway. Having to be babysat 24/7... is one of the worst things I can imagine for myself. The worst thing has already happened, but I still try. I haven't completely given up, despite what the doctors here think. I don't want to forfeit my life like that. If I can go home, I want to go home by myself, to live by myself, so I can sit and think about whatever whenever without having pills shoved down my throat or somebody asking if I'm okay every 5 seconds.

Maybe I should concede. Just get Harry to sign the papers so I can get out of here. I'm not that desperate to leave, but I think about it sometimes. According to numerous experts, I need to be around people who understand and support me. Since that wouldn't really be Harry, no offense, and I can't even think of who else I would live with that's available, I think it would be better for me to stay put for the time being. Besides, I wouldn't be able to afford a damn thing. I've been out of the job for months.

Had you going there for a minute with the "surgery's been slow lately, maybe I could take a holiday" thing, huh? Almost like this was still my real blog. But it isn't. I don't have a job, and I wouldn't want to work there anyway. Too many memories. I'm sure I could find someplace else that would have me. That is, whenever I leave here, I'll have to find some way to pay these rubbish medical bills.

Come to think of it, I wonder who they're charging. Certainly I'd have been billed or kicked out by now if it were me they're after. I hope it's just my insurance paying for it. Not even sure I _have_ insurance, but I don't want to know that someone else to be paying for this. Unfortunately, it would be just like my friends to do something like that. They are all such nice people. But, I don't think they have much... money... huh...

Oh.

Oh, hell.

There's only one person I know with enough money to pay other people's hospital bills without a word about it. It may even be a possibility, oh, God. Does he want something in return? Is this some public charity handout? Or maybe a favor to someone... else.

Yes, of course that's it. Maybe I have contracted some form of crazy after all this time. How else could I have missed this?

Obviously Mycroft's the one putting me up in this way-too-clean facility. Right about now, Sherlock would be telling me what an idiot I am and how it all would have made sense if I'd just paid attention to the weather last Tuesday. The fact that he can't tell me should've been my biggest clue. I don't know how I feel about this revelation just now. I think I'll go with some blend of relieved, touched, angry and sad. It's all too complicated to try and pick just one.

I miss him. So, so much. It takes one passing thought, like what he would say in one situation or another, and then every word I can think of, everything I hear and everything I feel, it all becomes him. His words, in his deep voice, his stupid scarf, his messy hair, his beautiful eyes. If I weren't such a grounded crazy person, I'd say he was haunting me. But, that's not true. He would haunt a criminal or a hundred, that devoted arse.

Is it sad that I wish he would haunt me? Probably. Yeah, I reckon it is. But, I can't bring myself to regret wanting him here in any capacity. He was my one person, my soulmate. More suited to me than any other person on this earth, even though we couldn't be more different. Why did he have to die? Why did he have to jump?

John Watson wiped a tear from his eye before it fell on the keyboard. He hated to think about these things. He was always bringing himself back to misery, the way he could never just stop thinking about Sherlock. That's why he was delayed in coming to the institution and that's why he was delayed in leaving it. John knew that. But he still couldn't stop himself. Every damn day of his goddamn life, he was thinking about the one light he'd had, without whom he was broken. Incomplete. Dead.

The nurse standing at the door gave him a sympathetic smile and politely left the room. He didn't want to be completely alone. It was always harder to stay calm when he was alone. He would just sit there, with no one to interrupt him, thinking of the first few months post-flatmate. How he didn't believe or accept any of it, but he still grieved. He couldn't keep any company, could barely keep his job, almost never took care of himself. He didn't care anymore. _Maybe_, he thought, _they aren't completely wrong to keep me on suicide watch_. He did not type that into his fake blog post.

Another tear sprang to his eye, then another, and another. There wasn't a reason anymore. He would just cry for Sherlock under the pressure of his aching heart. Sometimes it just started out of nothing. But, that time, he could hear the deep, beautiful, rare laugh of his beloved and salty tears dripped down onto his smiling lips. A happy pain, he thought. Usually he would remember the sad things, low-points, but today he got a reprieve. John felt he was lucky, even as a quiet sob shook him, that he had good things to remember.

A knock at the door interrupted John's silent moment and gave him a start. He turned quickly out of view as a nurse announced that his new guest had arrived from the doorway and John wiped his eyes. He sniffed, closed his laptop, wiped his eyes again for good measure, and only then did he turn around.

Then, John supposed, he might have passed out, or maybe he'd just begun daydreaming. It was all likely. The medication they had him on did strange things to him. But this was new. He didn't have a thought in his head. At least, not a coherent one. Why couldn't he pull himself together? It was just another delusion. He often had them. But never like that. Why?

Whichever nurse it was left with a lingering gaze and a nervous smile. That seemed like another good indication that he was seeing something that wasn't there. But, she had announced him. Maybe she wasn't there either.

"John," he whispered and the doctor-turned-patient's tear ducts seemed to explode. "John." He cleared the space between them in two long strides and knelt in front of the man he was addressing. John couldn't handle it. With those eyes and that _face_, that worried, apologetic face, it was all too much. "John, I'm here," he said, and John did not believe him.

How could he? It wasn't possible. John knew it with his logic, his reason, but his heart bled for it to be real. For _him_ to be real. _Sherlock_. Kneeling before him, his lost roommate, the only person who had ever well and truly shattered him. How could he not want it to be true? He did. He just couldn't believe, not after so long.

"John... Please don't cry," Sherlock pleaded, leaning down further to look up at John.

He closed his eyes tightly. The delusion would fade momentarily, it always did. The fact that this delusion was astronomically more vivid and beautiful than any other nonsensical drug-projection he'd ever had could not possibly alter the length of time it remained, he decided with a firm shake of his head.

"John, please. I'm here, now. I'm back." Sherlock was speaking to him in the softest tone he'd ever heard and all the while John's heart was breaking. He kept saying "please" and when John cracked an eye open he saw Sherlock reaching out to him, only to drop his hand away before their skin connected. The Sherlock of John's delusions was reluctant to touch him. That was par for the course. None of his other mental misgivings had touched him either. He was not ashamed to say he wished this one would.

Droplets fell onto his hospital-standard bottoms. John did not want to see them, but his eyes which he had clenched shut became tired of scrunching. He blinked away the pools in his eyes only to make new ones on his trousers. The sight of it made him more sad. Trying not to take notice, he looked up a bit and cringed. He was still there. John sobbed again in mixed happiness and anguish.

"John, look at me. Please, John." A pale hand with long fingers crept into his field of vision and John flinched away slightly. "Are you alright? Are you… Why are you here?" Sherlock would know, John told himself. This was not real. "John, talk to me."

He shook his head. "No," he croaked, or tried to, but his voice almost wasn't even there. It did not seem like Sherlock, or his shocking likeness, had heard him. John counted the seconds, quite literally, waiting for the hurtful illusion to dissipate.

"John..." His gaze was coaxed up by the unusually emotional tone. John cursed his own resolve, prayed the imposter had gone and looked up very, very hesitantly. Bright blue eyes reflected everything in the world John had ever loved and he smiled so hard he sobbed.

Sherlock reached out to him again and never in his life had John wanted to be touched so badly. He knew all his happiness would be gone the moment they would appear to touch; he knew Sherlock would disappear, his most treasured delusion. He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable loss that he had not yet grown used to in all the unknowable number of days since the event had actually taken place. A coldness radiated against the skin of his left cheek and John felt his furrowed brow quiver and goosebumps rise on the back of his neck in anticipation.

And then he felt it. A hand on his cheek. An actual, tangible, solid, palpable, tactile hand. Rough and cold and smelling faintly of leather and crisp city air, smoothing the small waterfall from his cheek, it was the most wonderful thing he'd felt in years.

"John," his exquisite voice cooed again with an almost imperceptible questioning note. If John had not already known that he himself was broken, he would have thought that he'd been broken by that tone.

He didn't want to open his eyes again and have it not be Sherlock, but he absolutely could not keep his eyes closed if it was. He could live with the disappointment, he thought, if it was only a delusion that would vanish the moment he thought it was real. John didn't care. He was starting to think he deserved the hurt, but even that didn't factor in. The point, the only importance, was Sherlock.

Reluctantly, John opened his eyes. The very first thing he saw was a pair of perfect blue eyes staring back at him. Familiar eyes that, after a quick glance up and down, made him smile from ear-to-ear. If that Sherlock was a delusion, it was the best delusion John had ever experienced. Sherlock and his glorious cheekbones, his flawless cupid's bow, the great detective Sherlock Holmes, was wiping John's tears away as if he'd always been there.

Sherlock brightened as John smiled at him. John couldn't stop crying to fully commit to it, but he began to laugh to the credit of his smile. "You're really here?" John asked. Carefully, John lifted his left hand up from his lap, trying his best not to startle away the shimmering figment of his imagination or something that would seem equally silly to him if he could think straight. He watched Sherlock nod and then John placed his hand over Sherlock's on his cheek. "Why didn't you say so earlier?" he asked with a laugh.

"John," Sherlock began with a mildly peeved expression. "I did say so. Weren't you listening to me?"

John gripped the cold but _very_ real hand on his face tightly. "Sorry," he laughed, wiping his runny nose with the back of his free hand. "I wasn't." The space that his heart had previously occupied seemed to spill over into his torso and his arms and legs, warming John from the inside out. "What took you so long?" he asked, leaning into Sherlock's continued touch. He should've been scolding him, but he couldn't manage it. Even though he felt like he could run a marathon with Sherlock beside him, he could not find any grounds to support being upset.

Sherlock's eyes flickered away for less than a moment. "That would take a considerable amount of time to answer," he said, the tiniest hesitation in his voice. Sherlock tilted his head down slightly, looking up at John with a caution that the ex-army doctor didn't understand. "It would be something to discuss at home. Perhaps over tea," Sherlock said slowly.

John noticed tears had stopped pouring down his face. He also noticed he had stopped smiling. "Ah," he muttered, surprising himself with the melancholy in his own voice.

Sherlock's eyebrows twitched. "Would you… John, do you want to go home with me?"

"Oh, God, yes."

**That was probably the cheesiest thing ever. Or sappiest. Is there anything you can make with cheese and sap? Oh, right, this. xD Hope you aren't a puddle in a corner like I was while writing this. ;) ... ;-;**


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